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Thursday, April 9, 2015

Opelousas: Outside My Window #2

There is an Outside My Window #1, but it is about a sensitive past event that I will not publish until next year. So it is a future history post, if you will.

Speaking of "outside my window" allows me to think about my Building Behind Me series from when I lived in (New) Rustavi in Caucasus Georgia.

Back to today-ish.

I work online at home and I situated my desk to face the two magnificent, living room windows. The window at my front-left gives me a view of a beauteous crepe myrtle tree that is now fully leafed. The window directly before me looks over the apartment campus courtyard to the building across from me. It's not a particularly attractive view during the daytime.

There is a security light just outside this window and every night its high beam of light shoots not into my window, but across my window. The result is so pleasing. I close my blinds at night and this splashy light leaks into my room through the slats and edges of the blinds in a way that mimics the light from a full moon.

Of course, this strong light attracts insects, yes? Each morning, when I open the blinds to daylight, I see the daily harvest of bugs whose appendages are caught up in the screen.

That's when the harvesters move in. Birds fly up and neatly pluck the insects from the screen. One morning, I saw a pretty green lizard enjoy breakfast. The photos below show his second serving of beetle tartare.

Outside my window, April 2015

Outside my window, April 2015

The al fresco dining outside my window in Opelousas reminds me of a dramatic episode outside my window in Alamogordo, which I offer you here: A View to a Kill.